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We hiked up the hill to take this photo of Nuku Hiva's enormous bay.
You can see several boats at anchor. We're left of center.
The Marquesas are part of French Polynesia, so they only speak French.
My one year of college French was severely tested during our four months
in French Polynesia. Few spoke any English. Customs
regulations were very strict and we were constantly checking in and out
with officials at each island (the US is also very strict to
foreigners). The officials were all fine to work with but
negotiating in "pigeon French" was a challenge. The
people living here were almost all Polynesian. There were a few
very small stores with little to sell. Diesel was $4/gallon and
you had to carry it to your boat in cans so we were glad that Escapade
still had enough fuel to make it to Tahiti. We ended up spending
two weeks here waiting for a part for the autopilot to be flown in from
the US. It wasn't cheap. |